Time to Grab Arenas?

From my current understanding of the Arenas situation, it appears it is not as serious as made out. It appears to be more a practical joke than a potential life-threatening confrontation. As a result, I think there is pretty much no chance of him being convicted of a felony, suspended for too long, etc. Anyway, assuming this, consider the following key quote from the following article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...0402119_2.html):

"Not so much. In fact, there are people in the NBA who will tell you that when you take everything into consideration, Arenas has the worst contract in the league. About the only way to move him would be to package him with two young players and a first-round draft pick in return for someone else with a bad contract. (No, Tracy McGrady doesn't qualify because his deal is up this year and thus not considered so bad.)"

This seems like a ridiculous steal, no? Arenas is way overpaid, but surely he is worth at least 10 million a year. If he returns to 2005-2006 form, I'd say he is worth 17 million+. So this represents being overpaid by 3-10 million/year, for the next four years.

Since Washington seems to be overreacting, perhaps we should look to dump our bad contracts (Calderon) while picking up young assets (Javale McGee and Blatche), as well as a first round pick. Say, something centered around:

I've not checked if the salaries match up in the trade machine; there might be some minor adjustments needed.

Let's look at the principal rotation players swapped in this trade. Swapping Calderon for Arenas means we go from a guy being paid 4 million too much (paid 9 mil when he should be paid 5), to one being paid 10 million to much, so +6 million in dead weight.

However:
1) We also get 3 young cheap prospects, some of whom are already outpeforming their contracts (e.g., Blatche who is locked up @ 3 million a year for like 4 more years, and is probably worth at least 5 mil), and might blossom into quality players.
2) Arenas might return to his 2005-2006 (3rd, 2nd team all-NBA, top 10 player in the league form). In this case:
a) His contract is worth at least 17 million a year, and so overpaying by like 3 mil is not a big deal.
b) You've paired two top 10 talents (Bosh+Arenas), and have a legitimate top 4 eastern conference title contender for many years.

Basically, the way I've described it above, it seems like an absolute no brainer to do this deal. Are there some risks I am missing? Getting 3 young prospects to swap Calderon's bad contract for GA's bad (but potentially not-so-bad) contract seems more than worth the risk.

April 4, 2007 - Arenas tears the lateral meniscus in his left knee in a 108-100 loss to Charlotte and has season-ending surgery.

Nov. 21, 2007 - Arenas undergoes a second surgery to repair a partial meniscus tear in the same knee - believed to be caused by overstrenuous rehabilitation from the first surgery - and is expected to miss three months of action.

Sept. 17, 2008 - Arenas has his surgically repaired knee operated on a third time, this time to remove lingering debris, which has caused continual pain and discomfort. He will miss all of training camp and at least the first month of the coming season.

So let's keep it simple. The current salary he is being paid is irrelevant, since we get to fob off bad contracts onto the Wizards.

All that matter is, how much would you be willing to pay him for the next 4 seasons? Given the above injury history, gun problems (that will almost certainly not lead to a felony, getting suspended for too many games), current gameplay, and previous All-NBA seasons, how much would you be willing to pay him per year for the next 4 seasons after this current one?

My own number is $10 million+. If yours is substantially less than this (e.g. 5 or 8 million), then fine, the above trade makes less sense. But I think most people will value him at $10 million a year, minimum.

If you value him at 10 million or higher per season for the next 4 years, then I think my trade makes a lot of sense. If not, then probably less so.

Last edited by Ripp; Tue Jan 5th, 2010 at 05:53 PM.
Reason: mention that current salary is irrelevant

So having thought about it further, I think verbatim's last point is a good one, but not an issue in this case. GA is more like Jameer Nelson than Jose Calderon. In fact, a scoring point guard (who can hit threes, drive, and create his own offense) is exactly the type you'd probably want to pair with Turk.

At least, in my opinion.

Btw, just to be clear, my motivation for considering a trade is it seems a great way to acquire talent at a firesale. Here are several other firesales that changed the destinies of franchises:

1) The Pacers overreacted and sold off a lot of talent (Ron Artest, Steven Jackson) too cheaply after the 2004 incident, with the Kings and Warriors being the primary beneficiaries (the 2006-2007 "We Believe" team in particular could not have upset the Mavericks w/o Jackson's defense on Dirk.)
2) Rasheed Wallace was sold for table scrabs, and led Detroit to a championship.

It is easy to make an argument that guys like Artest, Jackson and Sheed are insane/dangerous. But I mostly think GA is "weird", rather than dangerous, and so there is much less risk of repeated non-basketball incidents.

For this reason, I'm not too concerned with his off-court behavior (assuming he is not convicted of a felony), and feel comfortable valuing him at $10 million/year for the next 4 seasons or so.

Like I said, I think the first step in evaluating any trade of this sort is to first pretend he were a free agent right now. Then given his fit with the team, injury history, playing style, etc, how much would you be willing to pay him to join the Raptors right now? Maybe you think my $10 million is too high, in which case you should propose another number, and then we can work out the implications of that.

But hopefully you see that if the $10 million number is accurate, and Washington is willing to help us erase all of our undesirable contracts, AND give us 3 young prospects, then a deal like this makes a lot of sense.

I am starting to think that if the Raps do poorly in the next 15 or so games, and Arenas has not moved, then we go for him. Otherwise, I don't know if I would take the risk. Of course, I'm not paid the big bucks to take those kinds of chances on players. We know he can be explosive, and play passable defence...

Does his contract go up as the years go by, or does it stay the same each year?

So let's keep it simple. The current salary he is being paid is irrelevant, since we get to fob off bad contracts onto the Wizards.

All that matter is, how much would you be willing to pay him for the next 4 seasons? Given the above injury history, gun problems (that will almost certainly not lead to a felony, getting suspended for too many games), current gameplay, and previous All-NBA seasons, how much would you be willing to pay him per year for the next 4 seasons after this current one?

My own number is $10 million+. If yours is substantially less than this (e.g. 5 or 8 million), then fine, the above trade makes less sense. But I think most people will value him at $10 million a year, minimum.

If you value him at 10 million or higher per season for the next 4 years, then I think my trade makes a lot of sense. If not, then probably less so.

Your hearts are in the right place, but your minds re not. Gilbert Areanas has the worst contract in the NBA and if played out will become one of the worst contracts in NBA history. The future of the NBA is headed towards fewer max contracts and it would be a career ending move for any GM to acquire Gilberts massive deal. Thus, there is a Zero percent chance that Colangelo trades for Agent Zero. He is untradeable to anyone not named Chris Wallace. That is not say it is impossible for him to be in a raps uniform next year.

The future of Gilbertís contract due to his impending legal woes and the recent death of former Wizards owner Abe Polin is that it will likely be voided on moral grounds. That will mean that Gilbert will join the 2010 free agent bonanza along side Lebron, Wade and hopefully not Bosh.

With the current economic climate of the NBA, it is highly unlikely that any GM will be willing to offer Gilbert a long term contract anywhere near max dollars. With the GMís all holding out for the top tier max players, it is more than likely that a savy GM, ie Colangelo could scoop in and sign Arenas for the same dollars we gave Hedo (50 million over five years). Currently we do not have the cap room for such a signing, but if we brought in Gilbert, obviously Jack or Jose would then become expendable and we could use our mid level exception combined with the freed up cap space to make Gilbert an offer hopefully he couldnít refuse.

With the current state of the raptors, a potential 5 seed at the very best and a impending second round exit to Lebron, I think if this franchise has any dreams of ever legitimately contending for a championship, it needs to seriously explore the Gilbert option. I donít think he can lead a team to a ring on his own, but I think he could be one of the key pieces along side a Bosh, Bargs and Hedo that would put us in the conversation as one the top threats in the East.

Did you just say that Arenas could be worth $17M? If you want to overpay for players, there will be others who will provide more for less. Check the FA list for this summer, there are far better options than Arenas:

The history of free agents coming to Toronto is not exactly the whose who of franchise players. Arenas is no where near worth 17M, but he will be undervalued come free agent season.

In a league where no one wants to gamble on an Iverson or Tmac. I see Colangelo having enough vision and fortitude to understand a potential bargain when he sees one. He already has a history of taking reclamation projects, see JO, Marion. I would rather overpay for Arenas in the 10-12 million range than take market value for a second tier free agent who may or may not alter the play off landscape.

The history of free agents coming to Toronto is not exactly the whose who of franchise players. Arenas is no where near worth 17M, but he will be undervalued come free agent season.

In a league where no one wants to gamble on an Iverson or Tmac. I see Colangelo having enough vision and fortitude to understand a potential bargain when he sees one. He already has a history of taking reclamation projects, see JO, Marion. I would rather overpay for Arenas in the 10-12 million range than take market value for a second tier free agent who may or may not alter the play off landscape.

I don't think anyone will pay Arenas that kind of money. The cap is going to drop and Arenas hasn't shown that he's actually worth the money. He's a good streaky scorer but is injury prone, a bad defender, and not much of a true PG. The guy plays 37+ minutes a game and averages 5.5asts while shooting 42%. Somebody tell me where the value is?

At 18 million, he is wildly overpaid. At 10-12, isn't he just about right? especially in a league where everyone is overpaid. Arenas's stock is going to be at an all time low after this all blows over. Wouldn't you rather buy low for a proven scorer who is unafraid to take and make the big shot? You also have to hope he matures a lil ala Paul Pierce in the last couple years and realizes that winning a championship is more important than making the front page.

If you pair him with Bosh and Bargs, he won't have to take as many shots and you could see his FG% go up like Kidd in Dallas. In an era where titles are going to be hard to come by if your name isn't Lebron or Kobe, the only chance to win is to hit on a long shot. I'm not saying its not a huge risk, but if the goal is to win a championship than there is no bigger risk/reward than agent zero.

^ In a perfect world, sure. But I don't see him becoming any more of a player/teammate that he is now, because if it was supposed to happen it would've happened. Judging from his blog musings a year or so back, seeing his play in the post-season, his attitude during the regular season, the terrible relationship with his own team (the injury blame-games were too much), and his dislike for playing defense, I say we've already seen the best of Gilbert Arenas - he's a good streaky scorer.

If we were to go with this type of player, I'd look at Monta Ellis first.

No, I don't think he is worth 17 mil a year right now; I said 10 million. However, the unguardable All-NBA guy from 2005-2007 certainly was worth that much (in case you didn't watch him play, check out this: http://www.82games.com/0506/05WAS1C.HTM)
Will Arenas ever return to that level? Quite possibly not... But given that he was performing at a high level after being away from the NBA from 2 years, it didn't seem impossible. Obviously now it is a lot less likely, given this indefinite suspension.

Mo-sales has expressed my sentiment a lot better than I could have. Yes it is a huge risk, but given the chance to also offload all your bad assets and pry away multiple young assets from Washington, it at least merits considering (again, prior to this indefinite suspension.) Obviously you can quibble on how much value Washington sends you back, but surely there must be *some* package that would be worthwhile.

Aresnalist: would you really prefer Monta Ellis at the same salary (10-11 mil year)? He is extremely one-dimensional, cannot play PG, and turns over the ball a LOT. He also cannot shoot from distance, and is hard pressed to create points for you in a half-court setting. Gilbert Arenas even in his current weakened state is vastly superior..

Mo-Sales: There is pretty much no chance of his contract being voided (unless he is convicted of a felony.)

Anyway, perhaps things are a bit too premature right now. But it makes sense to at least monitor the situation and see how it develops...